September, 2013

After collecting an impressive 6-1 streak in Strikeforce, Hyan Couture (son of “Handy”) was among the faces to make the transition to the UFC when the promotion was bought out by Zuffa earlier this year*. Unfortunately, it seems that Couture will also be joining the small-but-growing list of Strikeforce fighters who weren’t able to hack it in the big leagues, as the UFC confirmed his release following two consecutive losses earlier today.

Couture last competed at UFC 164 in August, where he dropped a unanimous decision to TUF 15 *finalist* (ouch) Al Iaquinta on the Facebook preliminary portion (Daaaaang!) of the card. In his UFC debut at UFC on FUEL 9, Couture was TKO’d by TUF 9 winner Ross Pearson in the second round.

Ronda Rousey is psyched about the matchup, though. “They’re such predictable little pussies,” she says. “[Modafferi's] not gonna be able to bully in, you’ll be able to pick her apart, it’s perfect.” Rakoczy apparently suffered a shoulder injury during her elimination fight, but she’s ready, and Miesha Tate will pay for every smile she smirked.

Modafferi thanks Tate for the fight-selection — in Japanese, obviously — and says she’s not going to underestimate Rakoczy, even though her team (and guest coach Dennis Hallman) are convinced that Modafferi’s got this one in the bag. Vengeful MMA Gods, that’s your cue to enter.

Edmond Tarverdyan mean-mugs Hallman and tries to pick a fight as soon as he sees him. Hallman calls his bluff and offers to settle it right then in the training center. Rousey holds her coach back, then gets in Hallman’s face and throws a “piss fit.” (Miesha’s words, not mine.) Dana White has to come in and play peacemaker, which is kind of an unexpected role for him. I’m sure it’s just that infamous reality show editing, but man, Tarverdyan and Rousey are really coming off like crazy assholes here.

We’re still not certain when Jones and Gustafsson will meet up for an encore performance, but that shouldn’t stop you from betting on the hypothetical fight. The opening line for Jones vs. Gustafsson 2 was recently released, establishing Jones as a still-hefty -400 favorite, compared to a +300 mark for Gustafsson. Since then, the line has slightly widened out, suggesting that the early money is coming in on Jones. (i.e., the oddsmakers are making Jones less profitable and Gustafsson more profitable, in an attempt to lure more wagers in Gustafsson’s direction.)

And why wouldn’t people be betting on Jones? Gustafsson may have made the champ look vulnerable during their five-round war, but the reality is that Gustafsson still wasn’t able to come away with a victory, despite putting in the greatest performance of his career. So if you were thinking of laying some cash on Gus in the rematch, here’s what you need to ask yourself: Does it really makes sense to wager on Gustafsson now that he’s significantly less profitable than he was for the first fight? Do you expect Gustafsson to do even better against Jones the second time? Really? Why?

In my opinion, the only logical reason for betting on Gustafsson in the rematch is that the fight could easily turn into another evenly-matched five-round war of attrition — and when a fight like that goes to the judges, you might as well be flipping a coin.

It’s a none-too-subtle reference to how BIG this fight is, at least for Bellator, whose long-term health as a promotion could be strengthened by a respectable buyrate in their first PPV outing. But as a cynical observer, I’m not expecting an epic clash of monsters in the main event. I’m expecting guys like Michael Chandler, Eddie Alvarez, and Pat Curran to steal the show as usual, while two old relics smush up against each other for 15 minutes before slithering back into the dark and mysterious waters of the Pacific Ocean.

And I’m coming for it, Ken. I’m coming for the fucking money, you piece of shit. You should have stayed wherever you were, hidden under the fucking porch somewhere.

We reached out to Shamrock for a response this morning, but unfortunately, the traffic light turned green before he could finish wiping our windows with last week’s newspaper. Keep an eye on Shamrock’s twitter account, however, as his local library will be opening its doors any minute now.

33% of the voters had even less confidence in Penn. What could be worse than getting your ass kicked again, you ask? Not even being able to make 145 pounds in the first place. That’s right. A third of our readership is skeptical about Penn’s commitment to fitness and thinks that Penn at featherweight is a pipe dream.

It also appears that 7% of our readers are delusional (or just decided to be trolls and skew our results by voting for the most insane selection). They believe that Penn will become the UFC featherweight champion by the end of 2014. No joke.

And the ultimate minority, the remaining 5%? They think that Penn will get his revenge on Edgar and then retire afterwards.

Thankfully, it appears that most of our readers have a grip on reality. Penn lost decisively to Edgar two times, largely because he was slower than Edgar and had worse conditioning. These problems will only be exacerbated when Penn, who’s notorious for his poor conditioning and inability to fight to the death, attempts to drop down to featherweight — a weight class Edgar has fought in twice now without any sign that he’s been depleted by the weight cut. Penn, once he realizes that he’s not a young man anymore and that he wasted his prime thinking that he was too good to train hard, will very likely retire again.

After spending last week’s roundtable discussion paying tribute to the most foul people associated with our sport, this week we’ll be focusing on great comeuppances — cases when a fighter got too cocky and karma caught up with him mid-match. Some of our picks are knockouts, some are submissions, and all are extremely satisfying to relive. Read on for our picks, and please continue to send your ideas for future CagePotato Roundtable topics to tips@cagepotato.com.

MMA offers all kinds of painful penalties for celebrating early, and you’d think that everyone would have learned the lesson by now. But every once in a while, some asshole comes along and claims that he’ll achieve some lofty feat way before he has any right to. Call it a jinx, call it karmic retribution, but those fighters tend to fall on their face, while the rest of us revel in their defeat. You shouldn’t have tempted fate, buddy. You should have stayed humble. You shouldn’t have jinxed the no-no.

If you’ve been following the UFC for a long time, you might remember a former lightweight champion by the name of Benson Henderson. (He was the guy who held the belt between Frankie Edgar and Anthony Pettis? Long, curly hair? He could do all things through Christ who strengthened him? Does any of that ring a bell?) Anyway, this Benson Henderson guy was known for edging out very close decision wins in title fights — the kind of fights that could have gone either way, but kept falling in his favor. He got a reputation as a point-fighter who never went in for the kill, who only took risks involving toothpicks.

It’s a moot issue at this point, but we triple dog dare you to watch Cyborg’s victory over the previously undefeated (and late replacement opponent) Jennifer Colomb at Lion Fight 11 without asking the same questions. Although the fight went down last Friday, a full video of their two round Muay Thai bout has only recently been made available, likely because it was being used as evidence in an assault case filed against Justino that has since been dropped.

As for the fight itself…what would you expect? Cyborg swarms Colomb with a Tasmanian Devil-esque flurry of punches, kicks, knees, spinning backfists/elbows, haidukens, ice freeze attacks, Falcon punches and Bob-ombs at every conceivable opportunity until Colomb just sort of wilts from the sheer magnitude of it all. I’m telling you, have Cyborg strap on (HOLD IT) a face mask and some skates and she would have Milan Lucic shitting out his own eyeballs within the first period.

This is normally where I’d ask an obvious question — something like “Are there any intriguing non-UFC fights left for Cyborg?” — but we all know that answer.